Blood Money SERIES

Alabama Department of Corrections pays to settle lawsuits alleging excessive force

Published by the Alabama Reflector May 19, 2025

By Beth Shelburne

Most of the complaints are handwritten in ballpoint pen and sent from prisons to federal courts through the U.S. mail. The particulars about the incidents vary, but fear of correctional officers is a common theme.

“I am requesting an emergency transfer before these officers kill me,” wrote one man from St. Clair Correctional Facility.

“I am more afraid now than I ever have been since I was first incarcerated,” wrote another man from Holman Prison.

“Don’t let these people kill me,” wrote another man from Donaldson Correctional Facility. “I’m scared for my life and that they will say I killed myself.”

The allegations are from three civil rights lawsuits among 124 that the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has paid to settle since 2020. The vast majority involved complaints of excessive force inside Alabama’s violent and overcrowded prisons, according to a review of court records and state financial data.